Campaigns. It is important that I continue to know the strength of feeling on an issue and I prefer to respond to every inquiry, but the sheer size of campaign correspondence means that it is hard to justify to the tax payer the cost and time taken for individual written replies, so regrettably I will no longer reply to every item of campaign correspondence. I will post a response to the campaign on the "Responses to campaigns" page of my website.

I am sorry to do this, as it is rather impersonal, but can see no other way of maintaining a good service for all my constituents unless I approach campaigns this way.

Nursing Staff

Thank you for writing to me about NHS funding and nurses pay. You may already be aware that I am currently chairing an inquiry into the nursing workforce in my capacity as chair of the Health Select Committee. This will include the impact of 7 years of pay restraint on recruitment and retention as well as the wider issues contributing to the decline in the numbers of nurses registered with the NMC. We will amongst others be looking at wider workforce pressures, the impact of bursaries, new routes into nursing, working conditions and the effect of Brexit.

You may also have heard me discussing overall funding and the need for this to increase. I continue to feel that this will require a cross party approach to agree a sustainable long term agreement on both NHS and social care funding.

The following may be of interest in providing background to these issues:-